Irad Ortiz Jr.

It's going to be in Lexington, Kentucky at Keeneland Racecourse.

One of the top jockeys in the world, Irad Ortiz Jr., broke his ankle yesterday as he fell off of his mount leaving the starting gate.

He will have to have surgery on that ankle and is out indefinitely.

Yeesh.

She's a horse who was showing the ability to be much more forwardly placed in the past.

So switching back to Irad Ortiz, I imagine he's going to have her in a good stocking position here.

And if she builds on her form for the springtime, she's probably going to beat these.

It's just a question of how short of a price do you really want to take on her?

He's getting a little bit of class relief dropping into this allowance race.

I don't know if we're going to get six to one on him because he seems pretty appealing, especially with Irad Ortiz getting aboard.

But I do think this horse is a major player in this spot.

The number six is Slobberknocker.

Um, could fetch north of sixty million dollars, they reckon.

Anyway, one interesting filly who is selling is Ballinastar, who's winner of the, um, Group Three Anglesea Stakes for Robson Aguiar and is gonna run in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf with Irad Ortiz on board, so good chance.

Uh, Archie St. George is consigning this filly for, for Robson and joins me now.

Archie, always quite exciting, interesting, the, the sales, but it sounds as though you've got something people could really get their teeth stuck into here.

I'll be honest with you, not, not the trip we were expecting.

Irad Ortiz, one of the best jockeys, been back from an injury, uh, with a four horse here.

Oh, Tommy, walk me through this.

With a four horse here, we're in the back.

I think he'd be rather, be- better ser- uh, served to run on dirt.

Uh, we're, we're looking to dead the water right here, but watch this guy, Ally.

Irad Ortiz on, on, on board.

He's asking.

Chad Brown's filly for Jose Ortiz.

Brad Cox's filly, Fortune Cookie, with Irad Ortiz.

And then Steve Asmussen, second-time starter, and Flavian Pratt.

So you've got four of the best riders in the world and four really good fillies all hung outside.

As we take a look at the nine runners entered for this race, you could see Caribbean Life pegged as the 4-5 morning line favorite by Keeneland oddsmaker Nick Tamaro.

This horse coming out for the ever-dangerous Will Walden barn with Irad Ortiz getting up and coming out of a race where he was graded stakes place.

So dropping into this allowance optional claimer, he definitely is the one to beat.

But with these two-year-olds, they can change so much from the summer into fall of their juvenile season, so you never know which ones are gonna take that step forward, potentially to get on par with that morning line favorite, Caribbean Life.

If you, if you knew these horses, you follow these horses, um, uh, the race was over.

The race was over on the first turn and, and heading into the backstretch when, uh, Irad Ortiz was on the lead with Rhetorical in very soft fractions for Grade 1s at a mile at Keeneland, especially Breeders' Cup Mile Grade 1 contenders.

They went a half mile in 49.76 seconds.

[laughs]

And I did a bit of a recap for the happy hour afterward.

And all I said was, it's not Irad Ortiz Jr.'s job to make this a fast race when he can rock everybody to sleep.

Exactly.

It really isn't.

Why not? Can I say something

else? Yeah.

Do you know who was aboard him for that race? Irad Ortiz Jr.

Do you know who hadn't ridden a grade in stakes in a long time? Irad Ortiz Jr.